If I could change the world...

If I could change the world….

If I could change the world

There would be no more hurt and pain

No illness

If I could change the world

It wouldn’t matter what you look like

Everyone would be accepted and everyone would be beautiful

If I could change the world

It wouldn’t matter who you are or how much money you have

Everyone will have enough

If I could change the world

Success wouldn’t be judged on your money or possessions

People wouldn’t be seen as what they do,

but as who they are

If I could change the world People wouldn’t be so busy

They would stop and smell the roses

If I could change the world

No one would be made to do it alone

Differences would not separate us but unite us

If I could change the world

there would be no war

If I could change the world

I would put God in control

And step out of the way

What if I can change the world?

Without the stress I am....

Happy!

This week is going well :)

Whilst I have the flu, tones of uni work growing as the end of semester looms and am missing out on a family trip to New Caledonia I am also feeling great!!

With the family gone stress levels are low, the house is peaceful!! I love it!!

But the real source of peace comes from deeper within. Over the past month I have come to realise that I need to stop worrying about what other people think, I need to stop letting the actions of other people determine whether or not I am going to be happy and take control of my life back into my own hands. Realising this has relieved an enormous amount of pressure I can now be happy no matter how other people act, no matter what they do. But the best thing about it is that in stopping giving people control over my life I have been able to give God so much more control, give back to him parts of my life that always belonged to him and are only safe with him. Without the enormous stress of how to please everyone it is so much easier to worship and praise God. Church has become what it was always supposed to be again a place to worship God not a place that I am scared to walk into because I don't know who or what I might meet. I am there for one purpose only and what ever else goes on is secondary and will not reign over me.

I am so excited to be living only to follow the will of God I can't wait for Bible college and my first mission trip, I have no idea how I am going to find the money for all of this but I know that it is God's plan not mine, my plans have already failed so what do I have to loose.

I found this in my diary today I wrote it on the 3/4/09 right back at the beginning of things.

"Today I sit at uni on the library lawn, watching all the people walk by. Peoples whose lives carry on whilst mine falls apart, people going places, completing degrees whilst I sit static falling behind. All these people chatting, laughing, chilling together, I sit alone. I contemplate being only 20 years old facing depression and possibly cancer. What is it to be 20 and facing cancer and infertility?? What is this even supposed to mean to me?? What am I supposed to feel?? Tears roll down my face as strangers walk by not noticing that the world has just stopped."

Well the pain is still fresh and real but the world keeps moving on and this time i'm moving with it, this time not my way or my parents way but i'll try God's way....wherever that may take me!

Stigma

I've written many assignments on Stigma towards mental illness, one of the quotes that I use each time is:

‘In a recent Australian survey people with mental illness and their families said less stigma was the number-one thing that would make their lives better.’ (Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health 2003).

Often the stigma that those with a mental illness face is more debilitating than the actual disease. It always seemed like an interesting and powerful fact to me but only recently have I come to realise just how true it is.

I first started looking at the issue of stigma because I realised it contributed to my uncles death in 2001. My Uncle committed suicide after a long fight with depression and numerous suicide attempts. I was only 12, I had never even heard of the term mental illness, I didn't even know my uncle was sick, it wasn't something we had been taught about in health class alongside alcohol abuse, smoking etc. This made me so angry, how could my uncle die from a disease I didn't even know existed?? How come nobody ever told me??

To make matters worse my uncles suicide occurred after being sent home from hospital early in the new year due to staff cut backs during the holiday period as they could not cater for him even though he was clearly suicidal and made his intentions clear to the staff at the hospital. The more I looked into mental illness the more I realised that not only was society misinformed but that it was this misunderstanding that was and is still informing and influencing the governments response or lack of response to care for those suffering from this misfortune.

For me it was an issue of justice it was about making things right, it was a fight against the government, against the media. I didn't really see it at the individual, personal level I didn't ever consider how else it affected my Uncle I only saw the big effect my uncle was dead.

I now understand stigma from a totally different perspective. When you suffer from a mental illness stigma affects your life in unimaginable ways. I now truly understand what they mean when they say the stigma can be worse than the illness. If suffering from depression doesn't rob you of everything you have stigma takes the rest!

No one can imagine what is like to be so ill, even scared for your life, to be going through the biggest thing you have ever had to face and to not be able to tell the people around you for fear of how they will react. When you have cancer or break your arm or something at least you can count on the people around you to support you but with depression it is different.

You are scared to go to the dr's because you wonder what they will think of you? You wonder if you can tell your friends or will they laugh? You start having to weave webs of lies about where you have been when you are seeing the psychiatrist or psychologist. You walk into a room and wonder how many people in there know? Some people start avoiding you, some stop talking to you at all. Someone who you thought was a close friend tells you that they want nothing to do with 'people like you', that 'if you just have more faith and pray you will be healed'. 'There is no such thing as depression, you are choosing this'.

Depression cost me everything but God, who sticks with me through it all. The worst of it I lost my friends who slowly walked away, some stating their reasons, some just walking out of my life. So if you asked me if I could go back would I still tell people what I was going through I would tell them: Firstly if I could go back I would hope to never go through the same thing again but yes I would still be honest about my experience with depression and still am to this day. If we don't speak out about our experience people will never have the chance to understand, the stigma will continue and more people will die.

If I can speak out about my experience then maybe others will be strong enough to stand up and get help when they need it and if that costs me everything I have it will still be worth it.

The Facade

Are we accepted for who we are? If you tore off all the layers that you place on before you walk out the door, even the ones that you wear just for yourself to pretend that everything is OK and hide the mess that is underneath would you be able to live with yourself? Would anybody else??

So often today we hide behind the facade of the perfect person, with the perfect life, we hide behind nice big houses with beautiful views that we hardly even notice. We buy the latest coolest products, wear the right clothes and keep up with the latest gossip just so we will fit in. We plaster on a smile so people will accept us, will like us and wont know that at home everything is broken, that we are unhappy with our life choices and that inside we are falling apart we aren't perfect! Shock horror!!

So what happens if we tear down the facade, if we are honest with ourself and say 'I am not OK'?? Prepare to find out who your real friends are... Prepare for your life to be turned upside down...Prepare to be rejected, despised, ignored.... Just look at Job a once well respected man was turned on by everyone even his wife, his friends suggested he was wicked, evil, that he had done something wrong, that he deserved it, that he hurry up and quit mourning, and even that God hated him. Nothing has changed this is what we face today.

But don't let me put you off there are good things too you finally get to accept yourself, yes it takes work, but you will begin to learn to live with your real flawed self. It is only when you accept your flaws and your utter hopelessness that you can truly cry out "How long o Lord? How long?" as David does in the psalms time and time again and beg for God to come and lift you out of your misery. It is only when you can be honest with yourself that you can be truly honest with God. This is an opportunity to relate on a totally different level with God, you are open and hungry for Him, desperately desiring for Him to fill you, utterly reliant on Him, knowing that only He is in control and only He can get you out of this hole.

This is a bit of an obscure piece that I wrote sometime ago when I was really struggling and stuck by the phenomenon of the Facade.

The Facade

She plasters a smile on her face

Tells everyone she is OK

Because a long time ago she learnt

to give people what they want

And they want to know she is OK.

The Facade became so real

She begun to believe it herself

the only crack the scars on her wrist.

She soon forgot who she was

Is the smile real?

Or is she more than this?

Is there another girl on the inside crying out in pain?

The voice of the little girl long forgotten grows louder

crying out in pain

and soon she begins to question the facade

She tries to rip off the disguise,

to show people who she really is

but they don't like this girl and her pain

they prefer the fake smile,

that girl was more fun

Torn and confused she puts the mask back on

hides the little girl inside

who cries herself to sleep each night

She keeps the pain and the memories to herself,

let's no one in

Until one day the little girl inside demands to be released

the captive set free

Both lost to a world that didn't want to see the truth

Because they didn't like what they saw

Blogging?

So today I decided that it would be a good idea to start a blog, I don't really know why this seems like a good idea or why I am starting now paper has worked just fine for me in the past but it seems these days everyone one is writing their own blog so here I am stuck in another trend. I guess this blog is just a little piece of me floating out in the wide world web, I don't know if anyone will ever read it or if it's just me talking to myself but I like to write so it doesn't really matter.

I'd like to write about what it has been like to watch my life fall apart, to totally break down and then have to gather the pieces up again. I'd like to write about the heart break, the devastation, the disappointment and then finally the light that starts to shine through after the storm passes, but we will see how we go.